Chastity
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Grace's first summer at med camp leads her to discover she has more in common with the Virgin Mary than she thought.


**A/N:** This is just a one-shot ficlet idea that's been nagging at me. Totally AU. Be warned, it describes adult related themes. Not extremely graphically, but still.

_**Chastity**_

Grace thrashed her feet in the water as she gripped the railings on the sides of the tub. The pain was incredible, warm water or not. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt in all her sixteen years. She wanted to die. Or at least pass out and wake up for it all to be over.

Eight months ago she'd found herself in a rather precarious position: she missed her period. The funny thing - well, not so funny thing - was that she'd _not_ had sex. Strike that. She _had_ had sex, with Jack, but only once, and she'd gotten her period after that. It had been alright, because she'd been on the pill and he'd used a condom the night she lost her virginity. She had _not _gotten pregnant from Jack Pappas.

What had gotten her into trouble had been when she'd been at summer camp, a special program for medical hopefuls, called the Young Healers Camp. The only other person she knew while she'd been there had been Jason Treacy, the older brother of one of Amy Juergens's best friends. Jason was smart and very cute and since they'd been in the same lecture group and had the same hospital rounds together, she and Jason had gotten understandably close.

Truthfully, Grace had never planned on crushing on Jason. She was still with Jack, after all. But after some very mouthy mouth-to-mouth, everything she and Jason did after that had been ripe with sexual tension. It was unbearable for weeks! Every time their hands touched, every time he spoke to her, every time he smiled at her. She couldn't stop thinking about him! Her boyfriend wasn't even on her mind. And finally it all came to a head the day she had to give Jason a physical. His heart was practically crawling out of his chest.

That night they kissed. And kissed. And kissed! A lot of heavy petting ensued, even though there had been no clothes removal, not on Grace's part anyway. Grace had always been one of those girls who didn't believe in being able to just get _caught up in the moment_, but that night made her a believer. All the tension that had been building just exploded, even though there hadn't been any sex.

And yet a month later, after she'd gotten back home and school had started and she and Jason had just agreed to be friends, she found herself with nausea and a loss of appetite and no period. She was the next Amy Juergens. The next Virgin Mary. Well, Not-So-Virgin Virgin Mary, to be exact.

At first she didn't believe it. Hysterical pregnancy? Hypochondria? The flu? Stress? But by the next month she missed her period, she finally took the bus down to the next town over where nobody would know her, bought an EPT at the Wal-Mart, and sat hiding in the handicapped bathroom as she waited for the results on the stick. The cross she saw when the results came in was the most unholy thing she'd ever seen in her life.

That night, under the cover of her bed sheets in the safety of her room, Grace Bowman went into full research mode on her laptop: _virgin pregnancy, virgin conception, pregnancy without intercourse…_ Her laptop was sluggish from all the Google and Yahoo run searches by the time her alarm clock went off that morning.

But in the end, she had been convinced that it was indeed possible to get pregnant without having sex, without even taking off her clothes. It was unlikely, but _possible_, and all because somehow the semen from that night of heavy petting had gotten through Grace's underwear and found her egg before her period.

"Of all the unlikely things to happen to unlikely people!" Grace grit between contractions. "Of course I would have to get pregnant without even having sex!" Tears sputtered from her eyes as she slashed the water again with her legs. She was wearing a bathing suit top and a t-shirt over it, but that was all.

After the revelation that she was pregnant, she'd done more research, and had finally decided that a no-drugs natural hydro-hypnotic birth would be ideal for her. She didn't believe in drugs and feared getting her spine punctured for an epidural, but from all she'd read about aquatic births, she liked it: the water was a natural pain reducer, it also helped to soften the vagina and reduce or completely stop tearing, meaning no stitches which Grace deathly feared.

The heat of the water did help the contractions considerably and being in the birthing tub gave her the freedom to move around and sit in any position she felt comfortable in, but the pain was still searing. She'd spent all that money on hypnotic birthing classes and they did not do a lick of good! There was no way to concentrate on hypnotic teachings with such restricting pain! Her throat was raw from the burning and she was almost regretting refusing the epidural. "Please God," she shrieked at the top of her lungs. "Make this stop!"

Kathleen was there to place a warm hand on her daughter's wet shoulder. "It'll be over soon, Gracie. It shouldn't be much longer now."

"She's crowning," the doctor suddenly announced.

Grace released a shriek that echoed off the tiles of the birthing room. It was so loud that the water in the tub rippled as if a rock had been thrown into it. Grace half expected things to start exploding. The pain was so bad she couldn't even see anymore: everything was just white. Blinding white. And pain pulsed between her legs. She was screaming again and she was sure she'd be deaf by the time the birthing process was over. For a moment, she almost thought her ears were bleeding, until she realized it was just water running out of them.

"There's the head!" the doctor announced.

Grace felt the doctor's hand on her arm as she looked down and saw a scrunched cocoa powder colored head beneath the water. Her heart swelled in spite of the pain. She knew from all of her research that the hydro birthing process was gentler on the baby, because it eased the baby from the watery womb into the water, allowing for a gentler entrance into the world. Even though it looked frightening, she knew her child wasn't suffocating either: he or she wouldn't take his or her first breath until its face hit the air.

"Come on, Grace. I know you've still got another push in there. You need to get the shoulders out and then it should be smooth sailing from there."

As the doctor spoke, Grace felt another surge of pain grip her body._ "Speak for yourself!" _Her knuckles turned snow white as she grabbed the railings and opened her mouth for a final tormenting scream. The shoulders were even worse than the head and she honestly thought she was going to rip in two as the water began to turn red. The next thing she knew, there was a scream that was not her own, and the doctor was handing her a small slippery bundle.

Her silver eyes fluttered and she thought she might pass out as her mother handed her a soft towel to wrap her newborn in. "Is it…"

"It's a girl," Kathleen whispered. Her face was beaming, proud as any grandmother could possibly be. She was leaning over the side of the birthing tub, oooing and awwwing over her new granddaughter. "If only I had a waterproof camera," she was babbling as she admired her mystified daughter.

"Where's Jason?" Grace asked airily. Her head was still floating and her body felt limp and dead.

"He's waiting just outside with Lauren, Dr. Fields, and Mrs. Treacy," Kathleen nodded. "Would you like me to bring them in?"

"Just Jason," Grace whimpered softly. She was still trying to get her eyes to focus on the babe in her arms. From what she could tell, she looked basically exactly like Jason, except she had a full head of black hair, which was wavy and thick like herself, especially when the water rushed around it.

"Grace?" Jason approached the birthing tub with a weak look on his face. His eyes were roaming her arms, hesitating to stare too long at the baby. His baby.

"I'll let you two have a few minutes," the doctor whispered. She wrapped a towel around herself as she and Kathleen left, closing the door to leave Jason and Grace and their newfound daughter with only the sounds of the water as Grace moved within it.

"She's a she," Grace replied meekly.

Jason nodded, unsure of what to do. He flexed his long fingers, brushing them lighting through his little girl's wet hair, but hesitated to touch her, as if he might break her.

"Do you want to hold her?"

"I…" Jason shifted awkwardly. "It's been a long time since I've held a baby," he explained. "I was only a year when Lauren was born, I never really got a chance to hold her. I held my cousin a few times when I was a kid, but-"

"You're going to have to hold her sometime," Grace whispered. "Come on…"

Jason accepted his baby girl into his arms, holding her awkwardly at first as the water from the towel she was wrapped in soaked into his clothes. Then he shifted, gradually becoming more loose and comfortable before Grace's eyes. "She looks like you."

Grace snorted. "Do you wear contacts, Jason? If you don't, I think you need them, because she clearly looks like you."

"What are you…I mean…what were you planning on naming her?"

"I don't know." Grace ran her hand over the water, creating ripples in the tub. "I kept thinking something like Faith or Hope or Charity, but none of them seem to fit, you know? And I was thinking Miracle doesn't flow and I'm not really a fan of Virginia-"

"How about Chastity?"

Grace bit her lip, mulling over the idea. "Actually…I kind of like that. Chastity Bowman-Treacy. It kind of flows, right?"

Jason nodded. "I like that. Is that your name, little one? Chastity?"

"You do realize she's going to get associated with Chastity Bono all the time, right? And when she comes to us in ten years asking why, I'm going to refer her to you."

Jason laughed. "I think I can deal with that." The door creaked, prompting Jason and Grace to look up. His mother was standing there, along with Kathleen, both looking anxious. He could also see his sister hovering in the background and his father's head peering above his mother's.

"Looks like you've got some visitors, Chastity," Grace chuckled.

Jason hugged Chastity to his chest. "You ready to meet to meet your crazy family? I hope so, 'cause here they come…"


End file.
